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3 May 2013

Bob Brown: CrossFit helps Utah man rise from depression

RIVERTON, Utah – A Utah man is crediting a local CrossFit gym with saving his life after years of struggling with depression.

On June 27, 2004, Riverton resident Bob Brown was riding his motorcycle near Emigration Canyon when he was hit by a car. Two weeks later, he woke from a coma, known know where he was, where he’d been and what lay ahead.

“I don’t actually have memory of it but I’ve had it recreated for me, I’ve been back up there, I’ve seen it, so I’m pretty confident I know what happened,” Brown said.

Suddenly the lifelong athlete couldn’t do things that made him happy, and he fell into a deep depression.

“Disbelief, rage, sadness, depression, just everything. I was, like, ‘This can’t be happening. I’m going to wake up out of this dream.’ It was crazy,” he said.

Brown didn’t think antidepressants were right for him, so he and his wife spent several years trying to find something to bring meaning back to his life.

“You know you need to have some kind of passion in your life, to give you reason to wake up. I don’t care what the passion is. Maybe it’s your children or your work or a sport or cross stitching it’s a reason to wake up and I didn’t have that and I was looking for it but none of them filled the void until CrossFit,” Brown said.

After many failed attempts, an online deal for a local CrossFit gym became Brown’s perfect prescription.

“I was there one day. Fell in love with it, it was totally different from anything I’d ever done before,” Brown said. “It’s very exciting. It makes working out more fun. It develops into being part of your life which then of course changes your life.”